


shut up and listen

by AslansCompass



Series: Friends Offline [5]
Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Gen, Modern AU, Swearing, at least I'm trying to keep it nonpolitical, covid au, nonpolitical au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26057614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AslansCompass/pseuds/AslansCompass
Summary: Riayn gets her teaching schedule for the next year and calls Mandy to complain. It doesn't exactly go as she pictured it.  (Features ranting about the 2020 fall education situation, but names no politicians)
Relationships: Kethry & Tarma shena Tale'sedrin
Series: Friends Offline [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1870084
Kudos: 1





	shut up and listen

**Author's Note:**

> This is the same AU as the rest of the series, but with no mmorpg scenes. The snippets I've written so far also come from much earlier in their friendship; this brings them up to today, almost literally.

> August 20, 2020

Riayn stared at the text message that had just popped up on her phone. "There's a new raid on Heralds. Wanna try?"

No, she didn't. At least, not right now. She wanted to stew. And simmer. And possibly throw some things, but she didn't feel like picking everything up afterwards. "Can we just call instead? If we chat in-game I'm likely to get us both banned."

"That bad, huh?" Mandy texted back. A few seconds later, the phone rang. "So, what's wrong, sister?"

"Renfest is cancelled. The only thing I've been looking forward to all goddam summer and it's fucking cancelled."

"I thought it already was. You were saying last week--"

"That's because I was trying to let myself down easy. Didn't work. Fucking Minnesota and their fucking governor and their fucking 250-person limit! What am I gonna do now? I'd finally finished my Tarma cosplay and was hoping to get a hammock chair too. Do you know how expensive those things are to ship? And I'd still need a stand because I don't have any trees worth mentioning by my apartment!" 

"Too bad. How's work coming?"

Riayn swore again. "Three days."

"I'm sorry?"

"Three days a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. That's how we're doing school this year. In person classes three days a week, then Tuesdays and Thursdays off for deep-cleaning. We're supposed to have virtual classes instead, but," she snorted, "we'll see how that goes."

"You're actually meeting in person? All the schools in my area are going fully virtual for fall semester."

"Yeah, that's because your governor doesn't trust people to think for themselves. All that business with the lockdown and masks and gathering limits. We didn't even bother with full shutdown."

"I still can't believe that."

"Look, one block in NYC has more people than my whole school district. There's being responsible, and then there's being paranoid. We're not forcing anyone to do anything they're uncomfortable with. Senior citizens and sick people can order in their groceries and no-contact deliveries all they want. But we can't live like this."

"It's only temporarily."

"Temporarily?" Riayn laughed bitterly. "That's what they told us back in March. Temporarily. Fourteen days to stop the spread, remember that? Well, it's five months later and I'm looking at nine more months of remote teaching. Nine months!"

"At least you can plan for it. And honestly, how different is it? You still have all your resources and support, right?"

"How difficult is it? How difficult is it? You don't get to tell me how to do my job. You don't get to tell me how difficult it is, Miss Movie Star!"

"At least you can work remotely, I--"

"Oh, don't you start!" Riayn hissed. "Have you ever been a teacher? Have you ever been in a room with two dozen kids, all working on the same worksheet, with eight different questions, three broken pencils, one kid chewing bubble gum, and another with a runny nose? Have you had to hold your hand over a kid's so he can feel the right way to hold the pencil? Have you need to give one-on-one instruction to a kid who hasn't had anything to eat since Friday afternoon? Or given an extra-credit assignment to the kid who finished early because there's no such thing as G&T in your district? 

"And what about the classroom itself? These kids are supposed to sit six feet apart! Six feet, in a room where the desks are normally in four rows of five! Wearing masks for eight hours at a time. These kids need to hang out together, need to learn how to get along and play fair without hurting anyone else! How are they supposed to do that six feet apart, hmm?"

Riayn slammed the phone down.

"Riayn, look, I--"

Right. Cell phone. Riayn stabbed the 'end call' icon with her finger. Mandy's voice cut out mid-sentence. 

**Author's Note:**

> Why yes, I /was/ planning to go to Minnesota RenFest this fall.


End file.
